Contributed by the Mechanisms and Robotics Committee of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF MECHANISMS AND ROBOTICS. Manuscript received November 6, 2017; final manuscript received August 13, 2018; published online September 17, 2018. Assoc. Editor: Shaoping Bai.

This paper presents a new type of flexible screw mechanism (FSM), which is composed of a nut, flexible axle, and roller. It can be used in a worm robot to achieve flexible peristaltic motion, as well as curvilinear motion and deformation. This type of FSM uses a roller to decrease the friction. We investigated the transmission principle and the kinematic characteristics of this FSM, established the model of the velocity, acceleration of the roller, characterized the feed motion characteristics of the flexible shaft, and achieved an analytical solution of the flexible shaft's velocity. Furthermore, by considering the position of the pure rolling section of the roller, the spin slide model is proposed based on Hertz theory. To investigate the friction loss between the roller and the flexible axle, we established a friction work model of the entire FSM system. Finally, the motion characteristics of the FSM are evaluated through experiments.

Saga,
N.
, and
Nakamura,
T.
, 2004, “
Development of a Peristaltic Crawling Robot Using Magnetic Fluid on the Basis of the Locomotion Mechanism of the Earthworm,” Smart Mater. Struct.,
13(3), pp. 566–569.[CrossRef]

Copyright in the material you requested is held by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (unless otherwise noted). This email ability is provided as a courtesy, and by using it you agree that you are requesting the material solely for personal, non-commercial use, and that it is subject to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' Terms of Use. The information provided in order to email this topic will not be used to send unsolicited email, nor will it be furnished to third parties. Please refer to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' Privacy Policy for further information.

Shibboleth is an access management service that provides single sign-on protected resources.
It replaces the multiple user names and passwords necessary to access subscription-based content with a single user name and password that can be entered once per session.
It operates independently of a user's location or IP address.
If your institution uses Shibboleth authentication, please contact your site administrator to receive your user name and password.